On the Royal Hating of the Evil and Devil-Stink of Tobacco--King James I, 1604

JF Ptak Science Books Post 1676

”[Smoking is] a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”--King James I, in “Counter Blaste To Tobacco”:, published 1604

James I hated tobacco. He hated every aspect of it, particularly since some smokers favored the stuff because of its purported medicinal and curing qualities--but for James it all led to vile stink, Devil worship and deep sin. He just simply hated the whole idea--that and the person who introduced the notion and practice to James' fair island, who was Sir Walter Raleigh. And what did Raleigh get out of that deal? Well, he certainly over the course of tars-filled time introduced the possiblity of grim, cancerous death to a billion practicers and had a miserable pipe tobacco named for him. And he also was beheaded. I can't help but think that the smoking business had something to do with pulling James' head into pulling Raleigh's head off. (Well, it was actually "chopped" off, his bodyk buried and his head treated and stuffed and kept by his wife for the next 29 years. In his prison cell in the Black Tower, Raleigh left a small container of tobacco, with the sentiment Comes meus fuit illo miserrimo tempo (It was my companion at that most miserable time) engraved upon its lid.)

And so James wrote this piece in 1604, a thin 32-page evisceraton of tobacco and tobacco-users. It is an antiquarian rush to righteous vindication, and it in no small measure helped James' cause that he was right on a lot of his viciously-placed claims.

The sins and vanities of the filthy use of tobacco were many but evidently described in three layers, like a good cake, though he does make a good case for the habit's vileness. Tobacco is mainly a sin of guilt and selfishness, of drunkness which is one of the great malfactors of all bad things, and of course the greatest sin of all in that it would impede the protection of the King and the realm. James makes the case for tobacco use being an indolent, sick-making, vile producer of impotence and uncaring, driving all manner of sin that would lead to personal downfall and to the general "mollicie and delicacie of the wrath of overthrow" of kingdoms.

First are you not guiltie of sinnefull and shamefull lust? (for lust may bee as well in any of the senses as in feeling) that although you bee troubled with no disease, but in perfect health, yet can you neither be merry at an Ordinarie, nor lasciuious in the Stewes...

Secondly it is, as you vse or rather abuse it, a branche of the sinne of drunkennesse, which is the roote of all sinnes: for as the onely delight that drunkards take in wine is in the strength of the taste, and the force of the fume thereof that mounts vp to the braine: for no drunkards loue any weake, or sweete drinke: so are not those (I meane the strong heate and the fume), the onely qualities that make Tobacco so delectable to all the louers of it? ...

Thirdly, is it not the greatest sinne of all, that you the people of all sortes of this Kingdome, who are created and ordeined by God to bestowe both your persons and goods for the maintenance both of the honour and safetie of your King and Commonwealth, should disable yourselves in both?

The King also attacks the attractive and bogus medicinal properties of tobacco, and he takes care to list some of its precious capacities, from ridding people of the gout (instantly), to wakening the brain, to pox-curing, and even having the ability to cast out devils. Of course this belief was sustained as semi-fact for hundreds of years now, eventually worming its way into the all vast pockets of the Middle Class via print and other media as advertisements with doctors, dentists, nurses, pilots, sports figures, politicians (most famously perhaps being R. Reagan), and of course Santa Claus extolling various curative properties of cigarettes. In the 20th century there was also the strong influence of Sexerettes--the possibility of sexiness curled around languid figures selling cigarettes to the young and old alike.

"...it cures all sorts of diseases (which neuer any drugge could do before) in all persons, and at all times. It cures all maner of distellations, either in the head or stomacke (if you beleeue their Axiomes) although in very deede it doe both corrupt the braine, and by causing ouer quicke disgestion, fill the stomacke full of crudities. It cures the Gowt in the feet, and (which is miraculous) in that very instant when the smoke thereof, as light, flies vp into the head, the vertue thereof, as heauie, runs downe to the little toe. It helpes all sorts of Agues. It makes a man sober that was drunke. It refreshes a weary man, and yet makes a man hungry. Being taken when they goe to bed, it makes one sleepe soundly, and yet being taken when a man is sleepie and drowsie, it will, as they say, awake his braine, and quicken his vnderstanding. As for curing of the Pockes, it serues for that vse but among the pockie Indian slaues. Here in England it is refined, and will not deigne to cure heere any other then cleanly and gentlemanly diseases. Omnipotent power of Tobacco! And if it could by the smoke thereof chace our deuils, as the smoke of Tobias fish did (which I am sure could smel no stronglier) it would serue for a precious Relicke, both for the superstitious Priests, and the insolent Puritanes, to cast out deuils withall."

It would be a tough thing to argue against if any of this were true, though advetising similar to this--making a case for the positive properties of the drug--continue to this day albeit with modified and "tarless" and less=nicotined" tobaccos.

James makes the case that contrary to a common belief in smoking being a sort-of cure-all, that the true state of tobacco's relation to health was nothing of the sort. "And what greater absurditie can there bee, then to say that one cure shall serue for diuers, nay, contrarious sortes of diseases? It is an vndoubted ground among all Physicians, that there is almost no sort either of nourishment or medicine, that hath not some thing in it disagreeable to some part of mans bodie..."

Tobacco for the King presents an insoluable state of addiction (though he doesn't use the word) and downfall, the smoker being unable to tear themselves away from the vile habit:

"And from this weaknesse it proceeds, that many in this kingdome haue had such a continuall vse of taking this vnsauerie smoke, as now they are not able to forbeare the same, no more than an olde drunkard can abide to be long sober, without falling into an vncurable weakenesse and euill constitution: for their continuall custome hath made to them, habitum, alteram naturam: so to those that from their birth haue bene continually nourished vpon poison and things venemous, wholesome meates are onely poisonable."

Tobacco smoke in the kitchen and especially at meals ("making the flithie smoke and stinke thereof") is found by James to be disgusting and an unpardonable affront:

"And for the vanities committed in this filthie custome, is it not both great vanitie and vncleanenesse, that at the table, a place of respect, of cleanlinesse, of odestie, men should not be ashamed, to sit tossing of Tobacco pipes, and puffing of the smoke of Tobacco one to another, making the filthie smoke and stinke thereof, to exhale athwart the dishes, and infect the aire, when very often, men that abhorre it are at their repast? Surely Smoke becomes a kitchin far better then a Dining chamber, and yet it makes a kitchen also oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soiling and infecting them, with an vnctuous and oily kinde of Soote, as hath bene found in some great Tobacco takers, that after their death were opened. "

And last, but evidently not least, while James found the affront of smoking to be "effeminate", he sided with the care of the woman who lived with the smoking man, commenting on the effects of second-hand smoke, and living in the smoker's "stinking tormnet":

"Moreouer, which is a great iniquitie, and against all humanitie, the husband shall not bee ashamed, to reduce thereby his delicate, wholesome, and cleane complexioned wife, to that extremetie, that either shee must also corrupt her sweete breath therewith, or else resolue to liue in a perpetuall stinking torment."

He ends his lecture again combining the smoker's habits and practices with those of Satan, leaving the tobacco-ist with teh final condemnation before leaving his pamphlet:

"A custome loathsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest,resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse."

Its just too bad that the KIng's rant didn't take greater hold of the populations-at-large--it would've saved countless lives and energy. So it goes.